Hi all,

My company bought a HP 4350(faster,hopefully the same reliability) to replace our aging HP 8100(very slow). The service manual states that a new maintenance kit will be needed on 225000 pages. I have done on this printer only 194700 pages and the fuser unit is again going to be replaced by HP. That will make it the 2nd unit to be replaced under the claimed 225000 pages - i think i printed about 95k since it was last replaced. What concerns me is the fact that it is claimed that this printer is a high volume printer, but that the fuser unit is defective well before it's stated end of life.

The warranty will be running out in September 2007 and if I am doing 225000 pages a year it is going to mean that i am going to buy 3 fuser units for that year at a small price of only 3000.00 Rand ($375). If I am looking back at the old 8100 that have done now over 1.6mil and the fuser last a lot longer than it's replacement value of 350000(i replaced about 4 fuser units - all recons). I am using normal laser paper 80gsm and use only genuine hp cartridges.

The problem is the ghosting effect every 85mm and is only visible on the left hand side of the paper if you are standing in front of the printer. If you look on the fuser roller the teflon coating are badly worn and loose on the roller - is this a design fault from HP?? - and the black toner is burned into the fuser roll. (Before a new print run i always print a cleaning page to ensure good fusing quality) Is this a common problem or was this fuser units just maybe made on a Monday or a Friday??

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!